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Slavery and the Enlightenment in Jamaica and the British Empire, 1760–1772: The Afterlife of Tacky’s Rebellion and the Origins of British Abolitionism

Burnard, Trevor

Authors

Trevor Burnard



Contributors

Damien Tricoire
Editor

Abstract

How did abolitionism move from the margins of British society to a more central position by 1772? During the 1760s, some Britons came to see West Indian planters as especially vicious and West Indian slavery as particularly immoral. Tacky’s Rebellion in Jamaica in 1760 – the most serious slave revolt in British imperial history – was a galvanizing event showing the moral degradation of West Indian slavery. The horrific repression that followed the revolt shocked a growing humanitarian audience in Britain. They translated slave rebel sufferings into Christian terms. Thus, slave rebels were seen as Christian martyrs, an iconography that aided a developing belief that West Indian slaves were cruelly treated and that something needed to be done to stop the wickedness of planters.

Citation

Burnard, T. (2017). Slavery and the Enlightenment in Jamaica and the British Empire, 1760–1772: The Afterlife of Tacky’s Rebellion and the Origins of British Abolitionism. In D. Tricoire (Ed.), Enlightened Colonialism : Civilization Narratives and Imperial Politics in the Age of Reason (227-246). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54280-5_11

Online Publication Date Aug 7, 2017
Publication Date Jan 1, 2017
Deposit Date Jun 24, 2023
Publisher Palgrave Macmillan
Pages 227-246
Series Title Cambridge Imperial and Post-Colonial Studies Series
Series ISSN 2635-1633 ; 2635-1641
Book Title Enlightened Colonialism : Civilization Narratives and Imperial Politics in the Age of Reason
ISBN 9783319542799
DOI https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-54280-5_11
Public URL https://hull-repository.worktribe.com/output/4316674